Alastair McEwan is Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Queensland. He has a strong interest in inter-disciplinary research and the broader application of Australian research capability for enhancement of societal and business goals.

Alastair holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham and has held fellowships at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (SERC NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship) and the University of Oxford (Royal Society University Research Fellowship). After a stint as a lecturer in Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia he joined the University of Queensland in 1993 and became a Professor of Microbiology in 2002.

Alastair has an international reputation in the area of bacterial physiology and pathogenesis. His research has spanned a variety of areas of microbiology including the role of microbes in the cycling of organo-sulfur compounds and the role of bacterial molybdenum enzymes in elemental cycling. His current work, funded by NHMRC, is focussed on the role of transition metal ions, particularly copper and zinc, in the interaction between the host and bacterial pathogens.